


We All Have a Hunger

by RiaVicto



Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: Homophobia, M/M, Sad, Sad just really fucking sad, Super sad soft story that literally no one asked for, Violence, ghost story, it's brief but it's there, kinda i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 13:49:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15050501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiaVicto/pseuds/RiaVicto
Summary: When he is not here I am starving. There is a hunger in me that only he is able to stave. I am his and only his. I do not know what I am, or if what they say is true. But if I do have some kind of unfinished business. I know it is him.





	We All Have a Hunger

 

My name is Daniel Smith, I'm from London, I'm 25. And this year I would have been 25 for exactly 150 years. 

I am Daniel Smith and I am dead. I think. 

In life I was a musician, a soldier, a lover. People these days would say a singer-songwriter. Maybe if I were born in this time, and not at the time of war and revolution and disease, I would have made something of myself. Alas. The fickleness of Fate had other plans for me. 

In death I am memory. 

I see him. Always the year he turns 23. Somehow wherever I am he finds me. I see him, and I love him all over again. A miracle. Because once again I am whole. He can see me, he can touch me, and he can love me. 

But then, I die.

He never remembers me, a small blessing. Fore he cannot then predict the pain I am about to cause him. 

I am forced to watch him grieve for me for the rest of his life. Sometimes it is mercifully short. Sometimes his life drags out in front of us like a seemingly never ending road. Sometimes he takes lovers, sometimes he marries, but never for very long.

You see his heart always belongs to someone one else. To me. I beg him to forget me, to move on. But he cannot hear me. And I know even if he could, he would not. 

The first time I met him it was like being born. I no longer remember a time before him. We were in Her Majesty Queen Victoria's Army. Imagine it. Both of us tall but slight. He, with his chestnut brown hair, cropped short as was uniform, broad chest, cheerful eyes and careful hands. Me, nearly three years his senior but shy, my black hair untameable even when short. Blue eyes, too light, too large, too easy to read. 

And he did. 

He waltzed into my life like he walked into every room - confident, with the ease of someone who belonged - and he stole my heart. 

I saw him first in the mess hall. People swarming around him, jostling for his attention. Then he saw me. Those eyes trained on me, drawing me to him, my feet moving before I knew what was happening. 

I did not want to love him. I knew immediately it would be our downfall. 

They caught us, of course they did. It was an ambush. It was him they came for. One of my men tried to hold me back, “this is not your fight.” I hit him in his stupid mouth.

They beat us until we were nothing more than bloody pulps. I will never forget the way his breaths came bubbling from throat as he choked and wept and died.

I was standing over him, already gone. Even in death I was the weaker of us, one swift stamp to the skull and I was above my body. I desperately tried to pull him away from my corpse before they finished him off too.  _Run_ , I begged, but he wouldn't leave me. His face unrecognisable, eyes so swollen he could no longer see me. His teeth no longer in his head.

He died in my arms, though he would never know it. 

I waited for him, thinking he was still here too, somewhere. Wandering the earthly plain looking for me as I was him. But he was not. 

 

*

 

The second time I saw him I did not believe it were him. 

“Kyle!” I called out stupidly. For in some 23 years not a single person had seen or heard me. 

Yet he turned. 

His smile was broad. From ear to ear. He did not know me. But it was him and he could see me. 

“Yes?” he asked. 

“Kyle.” I said again. This made him laugh. He must have thought me simple. But he did not mock or run. How had I forgotten how kind he was? How patient, how good. 

“I’m sorry, I’m drawing a blank. Kyle Simmons,” he held out his hand to me and I shook it. 

There was a spark, of course. Electricity ran through my veins. Searing heat scorched me and I knew I was alive again. I almost burst into tears. So overwhelmed by the feel of a human touch. But it was not just that. It was his touch. He was here and so was I. 

If he felt it too he did not say. But I noticed the slight crease in his eyebrows as his eyes flicked for the shortest moment to our hands. Before he all too quickly released my grip and stuffed his hand into his trouser pocket. 

“I really am sorry my good man, but-“ 

“Daniel. Daniel Smith,” I cut him off. My name sounding foreign on my tongue from lack of use. 

He nodded as if he knew me, though we both knew he did not. 

“You’re a military man?” He asked as if seeing my clothes for the first time. He eyed me with suspicion for the first time. My unkempt hair, my out of fashion army regulation trousers and shirt. 

“No, an actor,” the lie came easily, from where I don’t know. But he accepted it just as easily. 

He was a student, he told me, of music, he added and pointed to his beaten briefcase. We went for tea in the hotel across the road. He took two sugars in his tea now and more milk than before. Luxuries we would not have had when I knew him last. 

We talked and we talked and we talked. Mostly him. I was so shocked that he was here finally, so sure I had finally died and this was heaven, that I couldn't get enough of just hearing him talk and say things and words and sounds. 

I was so full. My ears, so silent without the sound of his voice were now bursting with him. My eyes so dark without the sight of him were blinking open to the world for the first time and looking at him, the sun. 

I am so full. Yet I am ravenous for more. To feel him, to touch him. To taste him. 

It started to get late and I walked him back to his lodgings. At the door he asked me where I was staying that night. I answered him honestly, “with you.” 

He grabbed me by my shirt and kissed me. 

He poured his light into me and I drank him in greedily. I was so scared that he, or I, would disappear at any second I did not sleep, instead spending many hours watching him. He held me so close, like we had been together always. He whispered secrets in my ear. Things I already knew. Things I didn’t. 

He woke me the next morning by pressing his nose to mine. I smiled. Oh, how I smiled. We had one year together that time. 

One glorious year of him. 

On Mondays we would meet his colleagues and debate music and philosophy, religion, history, politics. Friday nights he would visit his mother and Sundays were spent sipping tea and reading newspapers to one another. 

We went on holiday once. Two days in Weymouth. I had never been to the seaside before. I relished the feel of the sand between my toes, the warmth of the pebbles, and Kyle’s skin against mine as we bathed in the sea. 

It took as long to get there as we stayed for. But it was worth every second. Kyle’s skin seemed to glow, away from the smog of the city. 

 

I held every day as precious. I did not know how long I had. Expecting every day to wake, once again silent and invisible. 

My death this time was far more painful. As if paying for the extra months I had been blessed with him. 

I felt it before I saw it. The heat coming up from the floor boards. The orange glow underneath the bedroom door and the suffocating smoke hanging above us. 

I threw Kyle from our second floor bedroom. Irrevocably breaking his hip, condemning him to a lifetime of pain. I was not so lucky. 

The floor gave way beneath me and I fell down into the flames. Into the bedroom of 1a Welch Street. Our landlord had fallen asleep smoking and burnt the building to the ground. 

I stayed with Kyle for the next fifteen years. Watching him walk through life with his cane and his crippling heartbreak. He managed his once dream of teaching music. But you wouldn’t know it, fore it brought him no outward happiness. He mourned my death so much he forgot his own life. 

I watched him as he taught. His students always gave him a wide birth. His large, wet eyes made them uncomfortable when they looked at him. His eyes with their unimaginable sadness, always threatening to spill whenever he played the music he used to play to me. 

I hated to see him like that. Kyle, my Kyle, the sun, the only light in my world. He had been extinguished the moment I died. 

When he followed me to his own grave I did not realise how much I had been clinging to the idea that maybe this time he’d be here with me, or we’d both go to some other place. I tirelessly looked for him. If I had met him twice. Surely I would meet him again. I did not know yet that I would meet him. Time and time again I would meet him. 

I did not realise that I would spend innumerable years trying to work out the pattern to this curse. And then innumerable more trying by best to break it. 

Meet Kyle, die. Watch Kyle die, wait twenty three years. Repeat. 

 

* 

 

I do not live without Kyle. I am never seen, never heard, never touched. I am cursed. Even when I do live, when am happy - delusional, maddening, hyperbolic happiness - I am wracked with guilt, for I know the sorrow I am to bring him.  

I try to warn him. Try to push him away. Try to run from him but he always finds me. I am in Paris, he is there. I am in Vienna, New York, Mumbai. He is there. 

As soon as I see him I am trapped. I run head first into his arms and love him and love him and love him until I am wrung dry. 

The day, months, years I am not with him I crave him so desperately that I feel like I am dying, again. I ache and burn and pine for him. I pray to every god. I cry and beg and plead. 

When he is not here I am starving. There is a hunger in me that only he is able to stave. An emptiness that only he can fill. I am his and only his. I do not know what I am, or if what they say is true. But if I do have some unfinished business. I know it is him.

I am cursed because I am selfish. I know the cost. And still I go to him. 

And then we suffer for my sins. 

 

*

 

“Hello? Sir? Please, can you hear me?” 

I heard the voice, of course, but I took no mind. I did not turn around, because of course no one would be talking to me. Only when I feel the hand on my shoulder do I spin suddenly. Almost knocking the person in-front of me to the ground. 

“Whoa, watch it mate,” the young lady grinned at me. She was tall, nearly as tall as me with wild, black hair, and eyes almost amber, almost feline. Her dark skin radiant against her pale sundress. 

She cocked her head to one side when I don’t respond. 

I cleared my throat and slowly watch her as her eyebrows crease in amused confusion. 

“Hello?” She waved a graceful hand in front of my face. 

“You can see me?” 

“Well duh!” She laughed, poking me hard in the chest. 

I didn’t understand it. I still had years until Kyle found me again. How was I here, in front of this girl? Her eyes bore into me with a look so knowing I almost asked her what was happening to me. Convinced suddenly that after more than a hundred years I had finally found the person with the answers. 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said, I was still unsure if she knew or not. I decided to try my luck. 

“I don’t know, have I?” 

“I’m Florence,” she held out her hand and I shook it. 

“Daniel,” I responded. 

She nodded and stood there assessing me. The last time I had been alive was 1995, and although my denim jeans and chequered shirt jacket weren’t the most out of style, they did not fit this era. Everything I wore was too old, too big, too  _worn_. Men these days wore tight jeans and long t-shirts and brand new shoes, not the beaten converse I was currently wearing. I probably looked homeless. 

Florence smiled kindly and we walked and talked. She offered no answers, it quickly became obvious that Flo did not know who I was or what I was. But she did offer me friendship. Easy and unassuming. She was not my guardian angel in any supernatural sense, but she was my saviour. As soon as she found me I knew I would love her and follow her as long as she let me. 

Our friendship happened quickly and effortlessly. Flo found me in that park in the middle of Athens near the university. I had been in Greece for the last couple of years. I liked the buildings, the history, the atmosphere. Of course I had no tangible grip on the space around me but the  _feel_ of the place was enough for now. It seemed a good a place as any to wait until Kyle came for me. Then I'd follow him wherever he wanted. So in the same way, I followed Flo.  

She never seemed to mind my being there. I asked her many years later why she had approached me in the park that day. I thought she would laugh and give me a non-answer, as was her way. But she looked thoughtfully and said eventually, "Because you looked so lost. I thought we could be lost together. You know, until we found our way." I do wish it had worked out like that. Flo deserved that much at least. 

 

At first I was terrified as to why I could suddenly be seen. I thought about Kyle constantly, wracked with guilt and fear as to where he was and was he OK. But there was no way of finding out, so I had to wait. 

I was so grateful for Flo's friendship. She was an enigma to me always, even now after the many years we shared together. She had a grace and kindness I was not used to. She laughed all the time and could make even the most serious, nerve wracking situation lighter somehow. 

Flo was a historian, specialising in the Ancient Worlds, Greek mostly. She was head over hills in love with stories, she used to say she told them for a living. Writing and writing and talking is all I ever saw her doing. She listened to me intently. Obsessed with my tales of love and loss and woe. In the beginning my voice was thick and tight, like new leather boots. But talking to Flo was easy and eventually I couldn't stop. We spoke of everything, there was nothing I couldn't tell her.  

She had many friends and would host large dinner parties. She would entertain us all with stories. They lasted well into the night all gathered around the large dining room drinking wine and playing games. We were a double act, she and I. I was a talky man now - years of silence, left to my own devices watching and listening, I had gathered many stories of my own. I spoke about my many lives, though of course to these people they were history, fictions. Flo jumped in, providing context, funny quips, she acted out my stories and people would laugh and laugh and laugh until their eyes streamed and their bellies hurt. 

Flo told stories too, weaved strange, dream-like tales of enchantment and Gods and magic, where mortals blundered, and Gods ruled with bitter, jealous power hungry fists. They were beautiful, these tales she told in her low sing-song voice. Sometimes they were long, dramatic, epic tales, sometimes they were frightfully sad and heart achingly romantic. But more than anything they were farcical and funny - her imitations of nymphs and gods, centaurs, lions and Fates. 

My favourite part of these nights was towards the end of the night, when there was only a handful or so of us left. We sat  in low chairs in the garden, huddled in jumpers and blankets, smoking and talking. These quieter times were the times when I felt closest to Flo, when she was not entertaining. She spoke about her family, and her lost love. I spoke about Kyle. 

"You loved him," Flo says, we both nod. 

Over the years I don't know whether the one Flo spoke about was gone, away in another part of the world, or with someone else. Or whether she was even alive anymore. Flo didn't say and I never asked. 

"She was a bit like you I think," Flo said once, though provided no further explanation. 

 

"Dan, I'm hiring you as my assistant," Flo said one day walking into her spare room I was now living in. 

I jumped at the chance. If I was going to stay, as indeed it seemed like I was, then I surely wanted to help her with money. It was Flo's idea that I start to teach. I couldn't lecture as I had no degree, no credentials. But various positions opened up in Flo's department and with her help I applied to one, and then another, and then another.  

Being around centuries' worth of books and research was a dream come true. I took the opportunity to try and research myself. I gathered as much information as I could fictional and non to see if this kind of thing had ever happened to anyone before, or if it was a common theme in literature. For a while my research circled around Vampires (ridiculous) and schizophrenia (most likely). 

My search was useless, so I put my focus into helping Flo, with my newly acquired skills using the World Wide Web, I became her research assistant. She would often tell me my talents were wasted on her and that I should run a course and lecture, like her. It took a few years but I eventually managed to earn the correct qualifications to teach properly. By that time Flo headed the department and put me to work straight away. 

She was so proud of me and had started to call me Professor. In the office, "Good morning Professor of Modern History," in our study, "Pass me those papers Professor," over the breakfast table, "More tea Professor?" 

I would roll my eyes at her, but secretly I adored it. Finally I had achieved something, I was doing something, something to be proud of! I had found a purpose, a use for all these years of watching and wandering and waiting. 

Teaching, it turned out, was a perfect vocation for me. Several times in my lives I thought it was music. But the first time I stood in front of a lecture hall of eager young minds, I knew this was what I was meant to do. 

Once I start talking, I can't stop, regularly going over my allocated time slots. But strangely, my students like me. It baffles me that anyone would want to hear the things I have to say, but I don't argue.

The students responded well to my lectures, I quickly earned a reputation of being able to 'bring the past to life.' The way I describe daily life as if I was there, the smell of a turn-of-the-century London street, crowded with vendors, and children, and horses, the air think with fog, and smoke and faeces. 

I am not an eloquent speaker, but I have passion. My hands move of their own volition as I get lost in memory. My students get good marks, and for a few moments a day, it doesn't hurt so much when I think about Kyle. 

 

*

 

We were together almost a decade, me and Flo. I watched her go from a young under-graduate student, then to studying hard to get her Doctorate Degree, to a highly thought of lecturer, an expert in her field. She was asked to consult on television shows and films, her research was published and her first book was on best seller lists internationally. 

She grew a little older, fine lines on her face appeared, and gone were her mismatching charity-shop clothes, replaced with tailored suits and well-fitting dresses. She was beautiful, loud and wild. I would sometimes look at her and imagine in another life that we could have been together. We would have grown old together, maybe there would be children. I would play music and she would write. 

Florence was like me, in that she was alone now, for the one great love her life was gone. She did not know that I was a few years away from meeting mine again. Flo never took a lover, though she had many friends and many admirers. She was dedicated to her work, and whatever had happened to her before me, I fear, had ruined any chance of her being able to love again. 

It was one of the many things that given a magic wand, or three wishes from a genie I would have given to her. She was an agony aunt for the world, always there with sweet words of advice and wisdom, home remedies, comforting arms and open ears. I wanted that for her.

We spoke about children once, Flo and I. She told me that they were never something she thought she wanted. She never found the right person. We were in the garden, heads low and close together like conspirators. Something in the way she looked at me made me kiss her. Her lips were soft and I liked the way my hands slipped easily into her hair. When the kiss deepened and our wine soaked tongues mingled we both pulled away as if suddenly burned. 

"Oh no," she said cringing and wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist, "Lets promise to never do that again," she laughed, and I nodded agreeing wholeheartedly. 

She picked up the half-drank bottle of wine and left me.

I did not want children. I could not imagine having more people to leave behind. I still was no closer to finding out what this curse of mine was. What if I passed it to my children? I thought of Kyle, how long was it then since I had seen him?

 

It was such a strange time, so used to only living with him was I, that for a long time I found myself at a loss of how to be alive without him. Eventually though I began to adjust and I found that I could go days without thinking about him. Then the guilt set in and the unknown-ness of my life would overpower me. Why was I here? And where was Kyle? Was he dead, had he ever even existed?

The year I was supposed to meet Kyle came, and when he didn't come for me I did not know what to do with myself. At first I thought I had miscounted, that I had got the year wrong, but I had not. The year of his twenty third birthday came and went and I waited and waited. He did not come. 

Occasionally Flo would come to me, "Do you want to walk with me?" Just the low softness of her voice, the fact she wished to comfort me against demons unknown helped take me out of myself. And the trip with her always soothed me. 

I asked her to move to London with me. She did not want to leave Greece but eventually she came around to the idea. She was spending more and more time there, and wouldn't it be a challenge to set up a new antiquities department elsewhere? 

I didn't tell her it was because I wanted to find Kyle. 

 

*

 

"You're coming, and that's final," Flo said throwing a dark blue suit jacket at me and a floral tie. She was laughing but I knew better than to argue with her. 

I hated these big university events; hated getting all dressed up, making small talk with the other academics and schmoozing investors. Standing is stuffy, old rooms lined with highly polished wood and books that hadn't been opened in years, smiling politely whilst people I didn't know talked to me about people I didn't know, nibbling finger food and gently sipping wine pretending I wasn't simultaneously starving and tipsy had quickly lost it's appeal to me years ago. 

But Flo wanted me there for moral support, there was a good chance she was going to be able to seal the deal for her next book tonight and I wanted to be there for her. We'd only been in London a year or so, but already Flo's network of academic contacts went far and wide. We would be home and laughing at these uppity old biddies within a few hours, I was certain. 

Flo was speaking animatedly with possibly the oldest, most stylish woman I had ever seen, both of them talking like they were old friends. I stood there with them, glass of mediocre red wine in hand, nodding but not listening, when I saw him. He was standing with two other people, them talking seriously and him smiling politely. 

As if sensing me, he turned and his eyes found me immediately. 

I could not tell you what I felt at that moment if I tried. Have you ever felt sheer panic and pure elation at the very same moment? I was in utter shock. I had all but given up hope that I would ever see him again. Yet here he was. 

I watched as he excused himself from the small group and made a beeline across the room to me. 

He shook my hand, and I introduced myself. My voice was deep, raspy, giving away the nerves I was feeling. I was left bereft when he released my hand. How many times had we done this before? And yet I was still at a loss for words upon seeing his face once more. 

I'm willing myself not to stare, but once again I am drowning in his eyes. My heart is making promises I cannot keep, I am vowing never to leave him, to follow him to the ends of the earth. I am dedicating my life to him once more, I am thanking every deity that they have finally sent him back to me. I want to touch him, to hold him, to worship at the feet of him. 

I am all at once complete. 

"You teach here?" Kyle asked me. He was standing so close, his eyes boring into me with an intensity I had rarely seen on him. He had not made any indication that he knew me. It was completely ridiculous to hope that he would. But his eyes had not left mine and although we had barely spoken the air around us was static.

"Yes," I said , clearing my throat and stuttering over the word, "Modern history." 

He nodded as if he knows. Perhaps he had seen my name somewhere, connecting the dots between my name and my position. Perhaps he was trying to place the name with a face. Whatever the case, I did not get an explanation because a tall, broad, devastatingly handsome man appeared and slips his arm around Kyle's waist.

"Sorry about that, darling," he said with an easy smile. 

Kyle hummed in response, and offered his cheek for the man to place a soft kiss upon. My whole body stiffened before I could feign nonchalance. 

"This is my husband," Kyle said to me, "and this is Daniel Smith," Kyle introduced us and suddenly it felt as though my head were plunged in water. Kyle and his husband were talking to me but I could no longer hear what they were saying. The room was spinning and I had only the most tangible grip of my senses. 

"William, it's nine," Kyle said, pulling me back into the room. 

"Hm? Oh yes of course. We must rescue our baby sitter, pleasure meeting you Professor Smith." 

They both shake my hand and leave me, stranded in the middle if the room.

I must have put my glass down at some point because the next thing I knew my feet were moving and pounding the great, white marble staircase, through the entrance hall and out the large oak doors and into the night air. I heave, great gulping breaths. My chest was tight and my lungs felt like they are trying to burst out from within me. I looked over to the wide tree lined, path way to my right. Hand in hand, illuminated by the Victorian street lamps Kyle walked with his husband. Home. To his waiting children. 

The devastation is so complete, so great, so utterly ruinous. It rips through me entirely and I am sure I am dying. 

Is this why I am alive, I wondered. Why, all those years ago I awoke without him? Kyle has found his soul mate, and it is not me, does that mean we are both free of this curse? Does that mean that this is my last life? Perhaps I have been given the last ten years as some sort of recompense. I did my waiting, I dutifully lived and lived and lived, waiting for him. But now, I have found him. Now I can die. Properly. 

Alas, I am not that lucky. I live, of course I do. And I saw  Kyle again, and again, and then again. It was as if now we had found each other we were like magnets and could no longer rid ourselves of each other. But nothing in this life is like it was before and I am wrecked by it. 

I didn't understand what was  happening. 

When I woke this time, he was not the first to see me, I was alive before I met him. I had forgotten what that was like, to be alive without him, I have so few memories left of my life before him. I had been forced to build myself some semblance of a life, to make something of a life while I waited for him. And I did. I waited. I had no doubt that this life would not eventually turn out just like the others. 

I waited and I waited and I prayed he would find me. And he did. But this time, we do not fall in love at first sight, he does not fall into my arms and we do not stay together for the rest of my life. No. He loved someone else. 

My heart is so weak and so broken and so selfish, I cannot stand it. 

My whole body ached to see him, to touch him to be near him. But when I saw him the pain did not lessen. I watched him laughing and touching and  _loving_  someone else and I burned.

This was worse, so much worse than waiting for him and knowing that when he finds me the timer is set, and we have a limited time before we are ripped apart again. Before I die and we spend years apart before we can be reunited and we start all over again. At least that way I get him, fleetingly as it may be, but he is mine and I am his. I get to love him and love him and  _love_ him. 

I could not escape him any longer. Try as I might. When I was on campus I see him in the corridors. I see his name on lecture theatre schedules. He taught music, of course. Brilliantly, I was  told. In a burst of bravery, or perhaps idiocy, I attend a piano concert he was performing in. 

I watched  his hands fly over the keys and I know what they feel like in mine, in my hair, against my cheeks, my lips. 

I went to the library, deliberately staying away from the places I knew he would be, but I see him. He passes me on the stairs, I see his tired eyes and know he is working too hard, as he always does. I see the tightness in his shoulders and know he is not sleeping, the slight shake in his hands and know he has had too much caffeine.  

 _I'm here!_ I wanted to scream at him.  _I have waited for you and I'm here, I waited, please see me!_  

I don't trust myself. I'm frantic, I'm going mad.

I stay at home, I lock myself away and I see him when I close my eyes. I am made of memory. 

 

*

 

"Dance with me," Kyle said, grabbing my hand in the middle of a well-lit street in Leeds. 

"I can't dance," I replied, pulling my hand away and looking around us to ensure we are not being watched. It was the sixties and even though free love was all around us, this was not San Francisco or Woodstock. Two men together was still incredibly dangerous. 

"If you insist on lying to me, I'll put you over my knee," he said with a sly smile. 

"You wouldn't dare," my voice coming out low and deep, seductive. 

Kyle grabbed my tie and pulled me hard to his chest. He runs a finger down my cheek, my neck, stopping at the base of my throat. His eyes met mine. I took his hand and spin him out and then back into me. We stayed like that, together for a moment, swaying though there was no music. Just the two of us, in the middle of the road, grinning like mad men. 

"Take me home," he whispered gently, and pushed our noses together. 

 

I am memory. 

No. 

I can't do this. 

This was wrong. This was so wrong. I don't want to be alive without him. I can't be on this earth knowing he loves someone else. I know I am selfish. I know that makes me a monster but I don't care. I can't live knowing that he's here and I'm here and I can't have him. 

I have seen him with others before. After I die occasionally he takes a lover, but they never laugh. He gives them his body temporarily, he gives them his time, his affection. But try as he might he can never give them his heart, not fully.

I always thought that after I was gone I would want him to find someone else. That after I died I would want him to love and be loved, that he deserved to be happy whether that was with me or not. But now I know that I am not as selfless as I once gave myself credit for. I cannot put anyone else's heart before my own. Because I need him. I need him and need him and need him.

I cannot live knowing he is here, so close, close enough to touch and yet I cannot have him. I am frantic with need. I am mad with it, sick with it. I hate everyone and everything. There is nothing for it. I need to leave. 

"Where do you think you're going?" Flo storms into my office. 

"Athens," it's a lie but it doesn't matter. 

"Were you going to tell me? Or did you think this resignation letter was sufficient?" Flo's voice was shaking with hurt. 

She threw the envelope onto my desk. I couldn't look at it, my face so hot with shame. 

"I-" I began, but with no real idea of how I was going to continue. 

"Save it." She held her hand up in front of her and I am instantly silenced. 

"I'm sorry." 

"For what Dan? Leaving me after ten years with a formal letter like I am your boss?" 

"You are my boss," I meant it as a joke, to bring some levity to the situation but it doesn't come out light. It lays heavy between us, cold. Like that's all we are, a department head and her subordinate. 

"I see. Well, if you need to go, I understand," she opened the door and without turning back to me, she adds, "But for what it's worth, I think you should stay."  

"I can't be here anymore. I just can't." 

 

*

 

I don't leave, of course. I am after all nothing if not selfish. A selfish  _coward_. I cannot leave while he is here. The glances of him, I allow myself hurt less. They will never be enough, and eventually I am sure the lack of him will kill me. But for now, I will wait. 

The door of my office slams shut, jolting me out of my self indulgent angst. My head snaps up and Kyle stands there in the doorway, a determined look on his face, "Who are you?" 

"Kyle, I'm sorry, I-" I fumble for words. 

He falters slightly and I realise that he has not yet told me his name. 

His eyes are red rimmed, and great purple bags hang underneath them. He looks like a mess. My fingers ache to touch him, to smooth away the deep lines in his brow. To ease the tight muscles in his neck and shoulders. I remember him like this, only once or twice when the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Kyle is not like me, he is ever an optimist, he does not wear anxiety well. I am much better at it. I am the darkness to his light, the worrier, the eternal negative to his positive. 

"Don't say you don't know what I'm talking about."

"I wasn't going to," I say honestly, because I truly have no idea what I am going to say. 

He runs his fingers through his hair roughly. He paces a little in my tiny office. He looks tormented. I know this feeling well, for many years I have pondered the absurdity of it all. Life, death, and whatever I am. I have run though a thousand different scenarios, read a thousand different of pages of wise philosophers debating the same things and never reaching answers. I hate to see Kyle like this. This is my role here, not his. 

"Tell me," I say stepping out from behind my desk. I approach him slowly, like one would a distressed pup.  

"What?" He turns to me abruptly. 

"Tell me what you're thinking."

"I know you," it is a statement, not a question this time, "I'm thinking that I know you. I'm thinking that from the first day I met you I have dreamed about you every night. I'm thinking that I have dreamt about you nearly every night my whole  _life_ ," he looks up at me. His eyes fill with tears, though they do not fall. He takes a steadying breath and slowly he says, "I'm thinking I dream about you every night, and every night I have to watch you die." 

"I'm sorry," I start but he just shakes his head.  

"When I look at you, I feel like I  _know_ you, that I have known you forever. I'm thinking that I know what you feel like, what you taste like. I'm thinking I know what your hair feels like between my fingers, what your voice sounds like first thing in the morning. I'm thinking that, that..."

I didn't know what to say. He had begun to cry. Not audibly but his brimming, wet eyes spilled over and tears ran slowly down his cheeks. I go to him, put a hand to his cheek, lightly brushing them away. He closes his eyes, and leans into my touch. He holds my hands to his cheeks, he inhales deeply. He starts to kiss my hands, holding me closer.

"I know you. Don't I?" He opens his eyes and looks deep into mine, "Dan." 

I had forgotten what my name sounded like on his tongue. All logic and reason went out the door and I kissed him. I held his face in my hands and I kissed him like I had wanted to kiss him every day for the last thirty years. 

"Yes."

"What does this mean?" Kyle asked breathlessly. I look at him at a loss for words. Sentences dying on my tongue before they are formed. 

"Dan, you're going to die, aren't you? This is how it works right?"

"I don't know." This is as true a statement as has ever been uttered. Everything about this life is different from every other. I was alive before Kyle, Kyle did not find me, and… could it be? Kyle remembers me and our lives before? I truly do not know what is going to happen because none of this has ever happened before. 

"When can I see you again?"

"Whenever you want. Every day forever?" I chuckle slightly, trying to alleviate the mood. I do not know what will happen but what I am sure of is there will be time for tears and heartbreak later. I do not want us to have any of that now, I want joy and love and him. 

"I don't believe you," Kyle says, his eyes desperately searching mine. 

"Would I lie to you?" I say with my cheekiest smile to try and elevate the atmosphere in the room. This time it works because a smile pulls at the very corners of Kyle's mouth. A small breath of a laugh escapes him. 

"Yes," Kyle says quite seriously, though he is smiling a wide, sunshine smile now, "I think you would." 

I'm shocked, but I don't speak out. He walks towards me and holds onto the lapels of my jacket, bringing our bodies together, "If you thought you were protecting me, I think you would, yes," he says, and pushes his nose against mine, before giving me a light kiss. 

 

*

 

"Well, good evening Professor!" Flo says in her most sing-song voice, feigning her poshest RP accent and dragging out every syllable. 

She's carrying a comically large pile of books so does not see me at first. She kicks my office door shut with her foot and unceremoniously throws the books down onto the sofa. 

In a panicked movement I shove Kyle away from me. He tumbles off my lap and claps a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh. The sound make her spin around. Flo's eyes land on Kyle and her whole body tenses. Her face blanches white and her breath catches in her throat.  I see her clock every aspect of his unkempt appearance, his ruffled shirt, hair in disarray and kiss-bruised lips. He looks like a glorious, hypnotic mess. 

Kyle doesn't seem to notice her reaction. He smiles his warmest smile and shakes her hand, "You must be Florence, I've heard so much about you." 

I should have been more careful, locked my door. For weeks Kyle had been coming to see me at lunch, between classes, before work, after. Any spare minute either of us had. We couldn't get enough of each other. My hands ached when they weren't touching him. I was deaf save for his voices, blind without him in my sights. I was so full when I was with him, and so empty when he was away from me. 

The door is barely shut behind Kyle before Flo starts talking, "Who was that?"

"No one," I cannot look at her. 

"Don't," she says in a warning tone I have never heard before. She looks scared, her eyes are wide and darting about my face looking for comfort, though I think we both know I can't offer any. 

I don't know why I had tried to lie. I don't know why I had tried to hide Kyle in the first place. Maybe I knew that Flo would figure it out, maybe I had already seen her looking at me, really looking at me. Wondering why I never aged, why I spoke like a Victorian. Why I had no family to speak of. No papers, no existence before she found me in that park in Athens all those years ago. 

Maybe I knew that she was cleverer than me and that, really, she already knew. 

"Was that Kyle?" her voice is barely a whisper. Her hand flutters to her face, she's shaking, "Dan," she moves into my eye line, forcing me to look at her, "Was that Kyle? I thought he was dead. You  _said_ he was dead. What the fuck is going on?" 

I've got used to swearing more than I ever thought I would, even have a bit of a potty mouth myself these days. But something about the force behind her words makes me wince. 

"It's complicated," I offer flatly. 

"Fuck you, 'complicated'. Complicated like a man coming back from the dead?"

"Well, yes. Actually." 

Flo is an expert in the Ancients, specifically the stories of Gods and magic and curses, "I have never heard of something like this before. It's unbelievable," she says shaking her head. It’s the first thing she's said in some time. My throat hurts and my voice is hoarse from talking, almost non-stop for hours. I start one story and immediately segue into another. Everything I say comes with a barrage of questions that I cannot answer. 

"So, you just... wait?" 

Flo wants to know what I do when Kyle is no longer here. But I cannot articulate what I am when he's not here. When Kyle is alive and I am near him I know what is real and what is not. I watch over him, I listen to him, I love him and love him and love him. 

When he is not here, nor am I. Not really. I am smoke on the wind. I am memory. 

Flo sits down in the soft brown leather seat in front of me, "But it makes sense, I think. You look the same, I used to be younger than you, but, but... I suppose I've caught up with you, haven't I? Probably surpassed you now." 

I nod, "Twenty five," I say my voice cracking slightly. 

"Twenty five," Flo repeats quietly, "So young to die," she says to herself. 

Then she looks at me, as if everything has come to her at once, her eyes fill and the small crease between her eyes deepens, "The way you talk about the wars, the trenches, the guns, the fighting... as if you were there. It's because you were. You were there, weren't you?"

I nod again slowly. I am not sure what to do now, where to go from here. I open my mouth to talk to her, to say something more, but before I can Flo rises I think she is going to come to me, to hold me. Often when she doesn't know what to say she'll place a hand on my leg or arm, she'll cradle me close, saying everything that needs to be said. But she doesn't, this time. Wordlessly she leaves the room. 

A little dazed, I stay where I am. What would I have done if someone came to me and told me this ridiculous story, I wonder. Surely I would have had them sent to get their head seen to. Fore it truly is an unbelievable story. 

Flo returns, with a book in hand. It pulls me out of my thoughts, she drops it heavily onto my desk in front of me. She points to a grainy photograph of a soldier, young, dark hair, and even though the photo is in black and white you can see his eyes, too large, too light. Too mine. 

"This is you, isn't it?" 

I audibly gasp. I hold the book up to inspect it. 1940, The Second World War, I was a soldier again. My third turn at fighting and dying for King and Queen and Country. I touch the face on the page. I have never seen this photograph before, I no longer remember it being taken. 

I signed up with Kyle, the day I met him, followed him to France, again. I died first, of course. I threw myself in front of a line of bullets, saving him and a dozen other men. It was our shortest of times together. He died in a gas attack three days later. 

Tears filled my eyes but did not spill over, I smiled. I turned a few pages to see the other faces. 

"He's not in there." Flo said, as if reading my mind. 

 

Flo dedicated a lot of time to researching my past lives, my 'condition' as she referred to it. We talk about it at length. At first it is a relief to be able to talk openly, not have to edit everything I say through a "would I have been alive for this?" filter. 

I worry she is becoming obsessive. Every spare moment of the day I find her pouring over increasingly dark and worrying material, folklore, myths, urban legends about ghosts, dark magic and the undead, whatever that is. 

Flo's investigation is time consuming and I am an inherently selfish man. All I want to do is be with Kyle. I want to be consumed by him, and not this wild goose chase for a fantasy cure that does not exist. But I understand why she is doing it, she has just found out I am a man living on borrowed time. She needs time to adjust to the idea that I will not grow old; that I will not be here forever. 

I try and be patient. She no longer looks at me like I am me. I know she sees a countdown ticking away above me now. 

I never should have told her the truth. That my story is a tragedy and not a comedy. She is treating me like I have a terminal illness, which I suppose is true. She fusses about me more than usual, helps me with things I am more than capable of doing, and spends more time than I would like asking me about my bowl movements. 

 

Kyle starts to come with me to Flo's parties. They give each other a wide birth. Flo tells me she likes Kyle, but doesn't agree that we are carrying on even though he is a married man. Separated, I correct her, but it makes little difference. Flo has never expressed any strong beliefs to me before about the sanctity of marriage. I believe the truth is that Kyle reminds Flo that I have an expiration date. Flo blames Kyle, because now he is here it means, that soon I wont be. 

I know Kyle thinks that too, that Flo blames him for our lessening time together. He told to me once not to force their friendship. He explained that it was me and Flo against the world for ten years, and now Kyle is taking me away. He doesn't know how true that is. 

Kyle knows I am dying, but I refuse to tell him anything else. I don't want him hurting any more than necessary. I look at Flo and her panicked eyes, the way she doesn't laugh anymore. I can't do that to Kyle. 

 

*

 

I couldn't help grinning, had I not dreamt about this exact moment on countless occasions? 

"You look..." I did not know how to finish that sentence. Completely and utterly ravished, totally spent, mouth-wateringly-earth-shatteringly-mind-bogglingly gorgeous? All of the above? "Perfect."

Kyle turned his his head towards me and smiling through a contented smile, "Hi," he said, his voice soft and scratchy. 

Even though a sudden nervousness had my stomach clenching, I was still smiling from ear to ear, "Hello," I nodded. I had no idea what to say beyond that. I couldn't tear my eyes away from Kyle's beautiful face, his eyes, his lips, the long stretch of his neck, the lean muscle of chest. 

I want to be happy. I should be happy, deliriously, feverishly, irrationally, happy. But I'm not. I should be sighing a breath of relief fore he is here. But I'm not. My hands are shaking and I am on the verge of panic. I hold onto him too tight, grip him in my hands in what I'm sure is a bruising vice. I kiss him longer and harder than I ever have before and pray it doesn't feel like goodbye. 

The fact that there are no guarantees in this life suddenly weighs upon me like an impossible ache. Kyle and I are not promised anything, no tomorrows, no happy ever afters. I am holding him like I'm going to lose him. Because I know I am. I promise myself to hold every second as precious, to never take a single moment with him for granted and to love him and love him and love him. 

Kyle's hands moved over my body, my arms, my back, my thighs. A small sigh escapes my lips and couldn't help that he is shaking too. He rested his palm, lightly gripping my bicep. Warm and pleasant and promising. It was only then I realised that this was Kyle's first time seeing my body.  

A wash of emotion crashed into me, a deep sorrowful mourning for all the lives we'd lived, all the memories we'd made. That only I carry now. All the happiest moments that I kept with me to carry me through the dark, fluttered away on the wind. My heart clenched. They wouldn't mean anything to him, because they weren't him. Not in this place, not in this time. 

A small tear slipped out of the corner of my eye and down my cheek. Kyle caught it with a thumb. 

"Dan," he said so softly that it caused a cascade of more tears to spill. I didn't sob, didn't make a sound, only silently cried as he held me in his arms.  

When my breathing softened, no longer coming out in great gulps and the shaking subsided, Kyle pulled away and raised my chin until I was looking into his eyes. He looked at me, really looked at me, and smiled, "I am  _so_ glad you came," he said with a sincerity I hadn't heard in a long time. 

At a loss for words, I kissed him. I was embarrassed, I didn't want Kyle to know how weak I am. I hated to think he thought me indecisive, in need of a pep talk in order to admit my feelings. Or worse, selfish. I knew the risk in what I was doing, I knew I was condemning us both to an uncertain future, to loss and grief and sadness. Yet, I was here. 

 

I roll over in bed one morning, watching Kyle as he sleeps. The sun is filtering lightly through the window and his golden skin is glowing. I trace a finger down his spine and watch a smile play at the corners of his mouth. 

"Morning," he says, voice thick with sleep. He reaches a hand out and strokes the back of my arm. At one point he brings my hand close to his lips and presses small, half-awake kisses to my fingers. 

I have woken in a pensive mood. I have had the dream again. The one where I kneel as a little boy runs into my arms, dark curls bouncing around his ears. He has Flo's smile and my eyes. I had almost forgotten that at one point we spoke about children. 

It is hard to think about myself as a father now. Hard to imagine that for the shortest moment my life did not revolve around finding Kyle. 

"Do you ever think about children?" I think out loud. 

"I have a child," Kyle says, eyes still closed, still playing with my fingers. 

This is true, how had I forgotten? Had I forgotten? 

Kyle and I had lived together for a few months at this point. We ate breakfast together, travelled to work, we went to dinner parties and concerts. He still saw his son, every Thursday evening and Saturdays. I do not know how things were with his former husband, I believe they parted on good terms. I only met him once, he did not look sad, he did not lay angry, bitter eyes on me. He smiled, shook my hand and we spoke about how early the spring flowers were that year, I think. Or perhaps it was the opera, La Bohème, Kyle and I were attending that evening. Perhaps it was about his latest flight, he was a pilot, if I recall. 

Did I want children? It was something Kyle and I had never done. Even in those lives when we had many years together, more than just fleeting moments, we never spoke about children. Granted it was only recently that two men would have been able to have children. But there had just never seemed room for anyone else. We had each other. We two and that was enough. 

What if I passed this on? I already had 2 people to leave behind now, I couldn't bear anymore. 

"Do you want a child?" Kyle asks slowly. His eyes are open, sharp and awake. 

"No," I say honestly, "Flo, we once spoke about children. Before." 

Kyle's face tightens but he doesn't say anything. I've never seen jealousy on him before. It hurts me to see it. I feel guilty for even mentioning it because I am all at once reminded that for the first time we have separate lives. That he is not just mine, that I have to share him with the world, his son. For the first time I am not just his. I have a history now, memories, moments, relationships that are not him. And I hate it. 

Would I give up all I have, all I have done for it to be like it had always been? Would I give up my job, my students, Flo to have had Kyle form the beginning? Of course not. That would be cruel. But I still hate it. 

 

Sometimes Kyle wakes up in cold sweats. Sometimes he is screaming, but not often. He wakes with a start, sits bolt upright and he's calling for me. He grabs at the bed covers, searching wildly, tears streaming down with face. His voice catches in his throat and he's crying out for me. 

He dreams, you see. It never happened like this before, but Kyle dreams about us now. He sees our lives together, in patches, he says. Like a slide show of photo graphs and grainy film. 

He sees me smiling at him as I run to him on the beach, kicking up sand behind me and we laugh. He sees me lying next to him, sweaty bodies on a tiny bed in a tiny flat, windows wide open and curtains moving in the breeze. He sees us finding each other in an array of army distributed uniforms. 

He sees me screaming his name, wildly wrenching trying to break free of the arms that hold me back. He sees me desperate, frantic, trying to get to him, he sees nameless, faceless figures approaching him, bats and fists and knives. 

He sees the fire. He sees the guns. He sees me die. 

I hold him. I kiss him and I love him and love him and love him. 

 

*

 

Did you know two men can get married now? Did you know there are ways for us to have children? Did you know that same sex couples can walk down the street together? And live together? And be in love? 

Did you know that the people who say vile things about us, that  _they_ are the wrong ones? The monsters? The villains? 

We are not reprobates. We are not degenerates. We have no sickness, we have no sin. 

We are allowed to love and be loved. 

I was going to ask Kyle to marry me. 

Then I died, of course. 

We'd had an argument that morning. For the first time in our many lives I had commitments that weren't Kyle. I had to get to work, I had classes and meetings and essays to read. Kyle had a concert that evening and I didn't know if I was going to make it. I said I'd try my best, and I did.

How was I to know that whilst running across the road outside the concert hall I was going to be hit by a bus? 

It was the least dramatic of my deaths. There was no heroism involved. Just sheer stupidity. 

 

*

 

The weeks following my death Kyle was catatonic. He wouldn't eat, he barely spoke. I screamed and begged him but my efforts were useless. I had no respite from his aching, burning misery. I did not deserve any. I lay next to him when he finally collapsed from exhaustion. Trying in vain to run my hands through his unwashed hair. Touch his red, cheeks, to kiss his chapped lips. 

The chapel where my funeral was held was small and modest. I watched as Kyle walked in and sat at the front. He was shaking and his eyes were glassed over. I would have burned down the whole damn city to hold his hands and wipe his tears. I didn't see everyone else arrive, but when I managed to tear my eyes away from Kyle the tiny room was bursting with people. 

I walked between the pews, dumbstruck at the many faces I saw. Flo's friends, Kyle's sister, the rest made up of my students, past and present. They gathered at the back when all the seats were filled, lined the walls and were spilling out of the entrance. I would have never believed that anyone would come let alone this number. I was so overwhelmed and touched. If I could have cried I know I would have. 

I was cremated. When the curtain shut in front of my coffin, I did not look at Kyle. I did not want to see his body crumble, his heart shatter, and his voice break as his tears came as great, gulping sobs. 

My ashes were scattered in my favourite garden on campus, the Vice Chancellor, gave special permission for it. She was a nice woman named Thea, and we'd shared many a good chat at various university functions and events. She also commissioned a bench in my memory. All this fuss for a history teacher seem a little ridiculous to me.

It was only when I stumbled upon Flo, watching as a heavy set man drilled a golden plaque into the bench, placed outside my old office that I realised I had not seen her at the funeral. I had watched her meticulously plan and organise it, and then not even noticed when she was not there. 

For two days I did not leave her side. An enigma in life and a mystery in death. I had known my death was going to be hard for her, she knew it was coming after all. Not the details, the when, the where, the how. But we both knew. Maybe that was why she'd not come to the funeral. She had said her goodbyes, made her peace. Maybe she thought she might even be able to see me again? 

She did not cry. She seemed to mourn me in her own private way, no tears, no overt expressions of grief. She had taken to having lunch in my office though. I didn't understand why until she began to pack up my things. Keeping my work and papers. Boxing them up and taking them to her home, her office. Reading everything, filing it in a much better way than I ever could. 

Two days after my funeral, Flo was sitting at the desk I infrequently worked at in the flat me and Kyle had shared for the last year. The old fashioned reading lamp was on and omitting a small buzzing that I hadn't noticed in life. She had made herself a cup of coffee, as I had no milk in the house, and was going through my papers and belongings. Her hands were gentle as if handling a baby and not a dead man's things.

Kyle opened the front door and their eyes met across the room. 

"Get away from there," he said abruptly. Both Flo and I startled at the harshness in his words. I looked at him and immediately I am hit with a pang of guilt. He looks like he hasn't slept in days. I had been so worried about Flo I had not been watching over Kyle. 

"I'm almost finished. He doesn't deserve to have his work thrown away, or forgotten," she threw him a look over her shoulder. 

"I don't want you here."

Her eyes were suddenly sharp with tears, "Do you think you are the only one that loved him? Before he was yours he was mine. You should remember that. You are not the only one grieving. You are not the only one that lost him."

Kyle buries his face in his hands. But she does not relent, "He is worth ten of you, alive or  _dead_." 

"Get out," his voice was quiet, a whisper.  

"You care more for him in death than in life," her voice was bitter with grief, "You never deserved him, all he goes through for you!" 

Kyle found his voice and screamed, "Get out!" 

Flo did not flinch, "I said I was almost done," she said firmly, picking up another stack of files, "I wish it was you that died. Maybe he would still be here." 

The sound that comes out of Kyle is barely human, "Do you not think I wish for that too?" 

 

"Dan?" Flo said aloud. I don't know how she knew I was here and not with Kyle. She could not see me, of course. I wonder if it were possible that she could sense my presence somehow. Or whether she simply said my name often. Perhaps when there was a slight draft, or she saw something on her desk she had not seen before, wrongly assuming it was me. I could not do things like that, create noises or wind or leave gifts. 

She was sat on the sofa, it was late. Kyle had left after their cross words. He told her that he'd be back later and asked her, almost kindly to not be there when he returned. I had followed him, begged him to go back and make up with Flo, I needed them to be friends. I needed him to know how painful it was for me when they said such cruel words to each other. 

Flo sat quietly, her fingers drifting gently over the book I had been reading before I died. It had been sitting on the coffee table, my glasses on top of it, my favourite bookmark peaking through the pages. 

Discarded, and forgotten. A book I would never know the ending to, the characters left in purgatory, suspended mid-story forever. Things like this I know bothered her, the great unfinished. Flo opened it at the book mark and began to read aloud. 

I sat next to her and held her as close as my bodiless arms could manage. So struck by this kindness. She had no way of knowing if I were in this room or not, if I were even still here or if for the first time I was truly gone. But here she sat, reading out loud for me, so I could get at least the small peace of finishing a good book. 

Of all the things I could do and say if I had one more day, it would be to tell Flo how much she meant to me, truly. I am sure she knew, but I would rest a lot easier, I think, if I could just thank her ardently for her unwavering kindness and friendship. 

 

*

 

Many years later Flo published my life story under a pseudonym much to the chagrin of critics and academics alike. It became an instant classic and showered with awards that were never collected by the mysterious, reclusive author. The huge critical acclaim it received had everything to do with her magnificent writing and nothing to do with me I'm sure.

I watched as Kyle read it, sitting in his chair in the garden. His son, taller and older now, with two daughters of his own, the spitting image of him bringing him soft fruits and tea. 

I sat at his feet, leaning my head against his knee. Enjoying the sunshine and the spring flowers. My mind drifted to the stories held within those pages, the many lives we’ve led. I think about Kyle, how old and frail he has been lately. I worry about him, I worry about losing him and how soon I will have the long twenty five years without him.

Yet, I was smiling. My hand absentmindedly stroking the unseasonably heavy weave of Kyle’s trousers. It was such a nice day, the gentle warmth of the sun felt so good on my face. It wasn't until I heard the book hit the ground and felt Kyle's hand on my shoulder that I even noticed anything strange about the scene.

"Dan?" Kyle said.

I turned to look up to him. The years that had etched their way into his skin had disappeared, his hair no longer grey, his shoulders no longer hunched but once again lean and muscular. He smiled down at me. I gathered him up in my arms; desperate, disbelieving tears running down my face. I grabbed at him kissing his lips, eyes, cheeks. 

He held my hands to his mouth and kissed my fingers, "How long do we have?" he asked. 

"Forever," I said honestly, unsure where the certainty had come from. 

"Well, better make a start then." 

We walked down the garden path, leaving his body behind and into the great expansive fields beyond. I don't know where we are going. But I refuse to look back, refuse to worry or care. Because I have him now. 

 

*

 

When he is not here I am starving. There is a hunger in me that only he is able to stave. I am his and only his. I do not know what I am, or if what they say is true. But if I do have some kind of unfinished business. I know it is him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to anyone and everyone that ready this sad af little story. 
> 
> Any and all feed back would be so very much appreciated! This is un-beta'd and probably full of typos and is generally completely nonsensical so please please please let me know it's pure rubbish. 
> 
> Many thanks to everyone that read. Much love
> 
> x


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